


Of Whiskey and Wine

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 05:05:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Water forms the base for all the potions that Severus wants to brew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Whiskey and Wine

Whisky for one man and wine for another – it's water for Severus, now and any time he doesn't trust the other man. He watches Peter over the rim of his cup. Once he envied the man but they are in the same place now, trapped in Spinner's End and waiting.

Peter paces, his hand going out to trace the bowed lines of the bookshelves that fill the walls. He gestures with the other hand, wine slopping over the brim of his cup and onto his fingers.

If Severus went to him, Peter would taste like his wine, sweet with the fruit of the vine and bitter with the aging of it.

Peter makes one plan after another and discards them all. Severus knows that he's trapped – they both are. Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore have set events in motion, and there is nothing more for them to do than to play their parts in the drama.

Severus is a pawn, and always has been one. Peter has been a rat, and he is not the one that Severus would have chosen, but…. His throat tightens, and Severus gulps down half his glass of water. It burns, the way he always thought water should, like fire and ice and all the destruction needed to wreck the world.

He can stop a man's heart with nothing more than a glass of water and a few things from the garden. He can stopper a man's dreams or force him to relive the past. In spite of his power, he is a pawn.

Peter comes to him and stands in front of Severus's chair, reaching for him but not yet daring to touch him. The club they have both joined defines them, and it is weakness to ask. They are survivors, and ask for nothing more than that, breath after breath and heartbeat after heartbeat.

Sirius never asked. He never needed, only came to Severus with whisky on his breath and the smell of prison on his robes. He took, but with hands that trembled as he unbuttoned Severus's robes. He pressed against Severus, and now … when he puts his hand over his breastbone, Severus can feel the rhythm of Sirius's heart.

The other Marauders – sometimes, Severus lets himself wonder if they would have asked. Late at night, with his hand on his flesh, he wonders if Potter or Lupin would have asked him for his body … if they had lived. If they had lived, and if they had not loved others.

When he is alone with the last hours of the night and there are no potions in the cupboard that will chase him to sleep, Severus lets himself wonder. It is one luxury that he has – dreams are too dear for him to purchase, but might-have-beens are cheap.

Their generation bears the marks of the war, and Severus can only reach out to Peter now. He leads him through the darkening room, through the shadows and the last of the fading afternoon light, up the stairs and to the narrow bed where he slept as a child.

He does not ask, but he takes Peter, and he takes comfort where he can find it.

It was always whisky for one man and wine for the other, and it will always be water for Severus. Water will keep the dreams away, keep away the plans and the pain, and if it does not do that – if it cannot do that, at the very least, water will keep him with a clear head, ready for the rest of the war.

He will be ready, and when the time comes … well, Severus will have his water, and a cauldron, and his choice of all the potions he can brew.


End file.
